[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 5648-5653]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Delahunt) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I anticipate that shortly I will be joined 
by some colleagues for our customary Tuesday night hour where we 
discuss the situation in the Middle East with a particular focus on 
Afghanistan and Iraq. We have described this hour as the so-called Iraq 
Watch. As we did recently, I think it is an opportune time to explain 
to those watching us this evening and my colleagues who preceded us 
that the normal legislative business of the House of Representatives 
has concluded, and we are now in that period called Special Orders.
  That is why we have an empty Chamber. Members are elsewhere, doing 
their homework and getting prepared for tomorrow's legislative 
business. Again, in terms of equity and fairness, Republicans are 
allocated 2 hours and Democrats are allocated 2 hours and we alternate 
back and forth. As I mentioned earlier, I anticipate that I will be 
joined relatively soon by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), and the gentleman from Hawaii 
(Mr. Abercrombie) to have our customary conversation.
  But I would like to begin this evening's conversation with those that 
are viewing us and, as they join me, with my colleagues about the issue 
of credibility, because as I am sure we are all familiar, if our word 
is not trusted, if we are perceived to be untrustworthy, we encounter 
serious problems as we go through life. The same is true obviously of a 
nation, particularly a Nation like ours that claims justifiably a 
certain moral authority, a Nation that values truth and honesty and a 
Nation that is hurt when others speak of deception and deceit when it 
comes to the United States of America.
  The reality is, Mr. Speaker, that our motives are being questioned. 
There was a recent survey done by the Pew Foundation. This was a survey 
done in seven nations spread across Europe and the Middle East. 
Majorities in those seven nations believe that our intervention in Iraq 
was motivated by a desire to control Mideast oil. Let me read to you 
those nation-states and the percentages that embrace this particular 
view of the United States of America. Fifty-one percent of the people 
in Russia accept as gospel that our intervention in Iraq was predicated 
on a desire to control Mideast oil. Fifty-eight percent of the 
population of France shared a similar view. Sixty percent of German 
society echoed those sentiments. In Pakistan, the number was 54 
percent. In Turkey, an erstwhile ally, 64 percent, almost two-thirds of 
the population, believed that the United States launched the attack on 
Iraq because of our desire to control Mideast oil. In Morocco, that 
number was 63 percent. In Jordan, that number was 71 percent.
  What is particularly disturbing, Mr. Speaker, is unfortunately this 
cynical view is reinforced by various news accounts that reveal 
American companies have been doing business with rogue nations. There 
was a recent CBS ``60 Minutes'' expose. I think most Americans were 
unaware that despite the fact that nations like Libya, like Iran, like 
Iraq were considered rogue nations, Iran particularly, being one of 
those nations designated by the President as part of the Axis of Evil, 
that in fact American corporations, or let me restate that, 
subsidiaries of American corporations could actually do business with 
those whom we considered our enemy, with those whom we had placed on a 
list described as being those states sponsoring terrorism.
  This issue was really brought to light by the New York City 
comptroller who in his research discovered that the $80 billion in 
pension funds for all city workers were invested in corporations such 
as GE, ConocoPhillips and Halliburton that exploited, if you will, this 
loophole in the law. Obviously, people from all over the world are 
fully aware of the fact that the Vice President, Richard Cheney, was 
the former CEO of Halliburton. So I know it comes as a surprise to them 
and certainly came, I think, as a shock to Mr. William Thompson, who 
was the New York City comptroller, that pension funds were invested in 
Halliburton, and Halliburton had created a subsidiary, a subsidiary in 
the Cayman Islands that purportedly was doing business with Iran.
  As we have recently discovered, of course, Iran is suspected of 
developing a nuclear weapons program. Clearly, any business that would 
be done with a rogue nation would benefit that rogue nation. In any 
event, this particular expose by ``60 Minutes'' that established that 
there was an offshore subsidiary of Halliburton in the Cayman Islands 
was in fact operating during the tenure of the Vice President.

                              {time}  2045

  According again to the transcript of the 60 Minutes interview, the 
subsidiary sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services 
to the Iranian government. This does not enhance our credibility, Mr. 
Speaker. I think it undermines our credibility. And when the 60 Minutes 
crew went to interview officials from Halliburton, they were denied 
access.
  But again they got on a plane. They went to the Cayman Islands, and 
what they discovered in the Cayman Islands was an office with a phone 
and no employees. Subsequently, because of a conversation they had with 
an individual in the building which housed this so-called subsidiary or 
independent company, they were told that, no, that mailing gets 
rerouted to Houston. Subsequently, they learned that in Dubai, which is 
a city in the United Arab Emirates, that there was the operating arm of 
the particular embassy. But, again, no answer, no response.
  So what we have is a parent company, Halliburton, declining a request 
by 60 Minutes for an interview but through e-mail communicated it has 
no intention of leaving Iran or addressing the questions that the 
interviewer had raised about the independence of its subsidiary.
  So we wonder sometimes why we are perceived in a particular way, 
because, again, our credibility is so vital to our claim of moral 
authority. I do not have an answer, Mr. Speaker. But I think the 
American people are owed an answer. I along, with several other 
Members, my colleagues on the Iraq Watch, have requested to the 
Attorney General, Mr. Ashcroft, that a special prosecutor be 
investigating to determine whether there is potential criminal 
culpability. But it goes to our core value of transparency and honesty 
and truth.
  Much has been stated recently about the testimony of Richard Clarke, 
and that continues to play out. As we have seen today, the National 
Security Adviser, Ms. Rice, apparently will testify before the 9/11 
Commission. But I think the salient import of Mr. Clarke's position is 
that Iraq had been the focus of concern since the beginning of the 
administration, and that seems to be confirmed by the former Secretary 
of the Treasury Paul O'Neill.
  So I went back and reread the book authored by Mr. Suskind in 
collaboration with the former Secretary of the Treasury and his recount 
of the first meeting on January 30, 2001, it had to be just several 
days after the inauguration, and I would like to read to those that are 
viewing us here this evening just excerpts from that particular book.
  I see I am joined by the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). It 
is good to see him here.
  But there is a discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the 
book

[[Page 5649]]

reads as follows: ``The Arab-Israeli conflict was a mess and the United 
States would disengage. The combatants would have to work it out on 
their own.'' That was the position of those that were present or at 
least it would appear to be the consensus that was emerging at the 
time.
  ``Powell said such a move might be hasty. `The consequences of that 
could be dire,' he said, `especially for the Palestinians.'
  ``Bush shrugged, `Maybe that's the best way to get things back in 
balance.'
  ``Powell,'' obviously a reference to Secretary Powell, ``seemed 
startled. `Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify 
things,' Bush said. He turned to Rice. `So, Condi, what are we going to 
talk about today? What's on the agenda?'
  ```How Iraq is destabilizing the region, Mr. President,' Rice said. 
In what several observers understood was a scripted exchange, she noted 
that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region.''
  This is an excerpt from the former Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 
O'Neill's, book. That is 5 days after the President was inaugurated.
  The next excerpt that I will read from was a meeting of the 
principals, the Cabinet members on the National Security Council. This 
was conducted on February 27, 2001. Again, the purpose clearly was the 
emphasis by the Secretary, the Secretary of Treasury, Mr. O'Neill, that 
it was all about Iraq. This is in February of 2001. Clearly this would 
corroborate, I would suggest, the import of Richard Clarke's recent 
book ``Against All Enemies.''
  But what is interesting in this particular excerpt is a reference to 
oil, a reference again to oil. We are not talking about terrorism. We 
are talking about oil, and let me quote this passage.
  ``Beneath the surface was a battle O'Neill had seen brewing since the 
National Security Council meeting on January 30. It was Powell and his 
moderates at the State Department versus hard-liners like Rumsfeld, 
Cheney, and Wolfowitz, who were already planning the next war in Iraq 
and the shape of a post-Saddam country.'' Remember, this is February 
27, 2001, months before the tragedy that befell us on September 11.
  ``Documents were prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, 
Rumsfeld's intelligence arm, mapping Iraq's oil fields and exploration 
areas and listing companies that might be interested in leveraging the 
precious asset. One document head `Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field 
Contracts' lists companies from 30 countries, their specialties, 
bidding histories, and in some cases their particular areas of 
interest. An attached document maps Iraq with markings for super giant 
oil fields, other oil fields, and earmarked for production sharing 
while demarking the largely undeveloped southwest of the country into 
nine blocks to designate areas for future exploration.''
  So I guess, Mr. Speaker, I should not be surprised that in seven 
nations, according to the highly respected Pew Foundation, a survey 
revealed that substantial majorities in those nations believe that it 
was the intention of the United States to invade Iraq to control Mid 
East oil. The excerpt I just read from Secretary O'Neill's book relates 
his impressions, not mine, not the gentleman from Hawaii's (Mr. 
Abercrombie), and not the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), my 
colleague who has just arrived. So we are talking about oil here and 
the interest of oil, and this is the impression that the Secretary of 
Treasury that served in the Bush administration concluded.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman might find it 
interesting, with regard to the points that he has just been making and 
the possibility of oil exploration, I believe was the phrase that was 
used, mapping of fields, potential drilling areas and so on. Well, does 
the gentleman recall that while we were unable to prevent looting, mass 
looting not just of the Baghdad museums, the history of the entire 
Middle East, really the Mesopotamian history there, but unable to stop 
looting in virtually every area of Baghdad and throughout Iraq, 
hospitals, schools, businesses, everywhere, was it not interesting the 
Oil Ministry was guarded? And I wonder how that took place. I wonder 
what the emphasis was.
  Would the gentleman be interested in a story from USA Today of March 
29, Monday, as follows: ``In 2002, troops from the Fifth Special Forces 
group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for 
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment in 
Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish 
cultures. The CIA was stretched badly in its capacity to collect, 
translate, and analyze information coming from Afghanistan. When the 
White House raised a new priority, it took specialists away from 
Afghanistan in an effort to ensure Iraq was covered.''
  USA Today added, ``Those were just two of the trade-offs required 
because of what the Pentagon and the CIA acknowledged is a shortage of 
key personnel to fight the war on terrorism,'' not the engagement in 
Iraq, the war on terrorism that we hear about all the time. ``The 
question of how much those shifts prevented progress against al Qaeda 
and the other terrorists is putting the Bush administration on the 
defensive.''

                              {time}  2100

  Troops with the capacity to hunt Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan were 
removed and sent to Iraq. Now I believe the gentleman will observe 
there is a renewed emphasis on catching and capturing or killing Osama 
bin Laden, as if this had been put into limbo for some period of time.
  I wonder if the gentleman would observe, as I do, that there may be 
more than a coincidence here with respect to what he has just been 
sharing with us?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, again, all of this goes to the credibility of the 
United States.
  When administration officials, and particularly the Vice President, 
make statements that in one case was contradicted the next day by the 
President himself regarding links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, 
when on a Meet the Press program the Vice President of the United 
States suggested that there were links and then the next day the 
President of the United States came out and unequivocally said there is 
no evidence linking 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, and then subsequent to 
that, subsequent to that, in January of this year the Vice President 
again repeats the assertion, the allegation, about linkages, there is a 
cumulative impact here.
  There is a cumulative impact, because, after awhile, people are 
saying, you are conning us; you are misleading us. Like just recently, 
the Prime Minister of Poland, an ally in the coalition of the willing 
that is still in Iraq, said, ``We were misled. We were taken for a 
ride.''
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield further, the people from 
Poland may be having second thoughts after today's activities. I do not 
know if the gentleman is aware that in Iraq today, those soldiers, part 
of the contingent from Poland, came under assault from those who, and I 
almost hesitate to say because it sounds as if I am making an ironic 
comment, and that is not really my intention, the situation speaks for 
itself, they were assaulted by those who are complaining that their 
applications to be police officers were not being properly processed. 
So, apparently, the people who want to be the police officers are now 
engaged in gang assaults in Iraq; and in this instance it happens to be 
against those who have been sent there from Poland. I think this is 
only a precursor of those things which are to come.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can interrupt, I believe that goes to the question 
of competence; and the issue of post-war planning has been roundly 
criticized.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield further, that is 
precisely the point. In the context which you mentioned of the Vice 
President, Mr. Cheney, indicating that we should pay the closest 
attention and give the

[[Page 5650]]

highest credibility to the idea that links, and those are the phrases 
of choice of the Vice President, Mr. Cheney, links on the most 
peripheral basis, links on the periphery must be nonetheless taken 
very, very seriously.
  I hope the gentleman agrees that is a fair characterization of what 
Vice President Cheney has been doing, that the most elliptical 
connections must be taken with all seriousness. At the same time, he 
denies his links and connections to the Halliburton Company, to the oil 
companies that he has served slavishly throughout his career, have 
anything to do with the decisions that have been made with respect to 
Iraq, with the decisions, political decisions, made with respect to 
invading that nation.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, let me go back earlier to the excerpt that I 
recited from the O'Neill book. On February 27, the administration was a 
month old. Here we have a meeting of the National Security Council of 
the United States talking about exploration, mega-giant oil fields, 
contracts.
  I would hope that those that might be viewing this conversation this 
evening, and I am not here shilling for Mr. Suskind and former 
Secretary O'Neill, but they should go out and read the book, because we 
know that Mr. O'Neill was castigated, and we also are fully aware that 
Mr. Clarke is being attacked and maligned.
  But what I suggest is, read these two as companions. It is clear that 
there is no collaboration going on between Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Clarke. 
But the salient point is from the day they came into office, this was 
about Iraq. This was about Iraq.
  Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield on that point, I would like 
to comment on what you just said, but before I do so, I would like to 
make a statement of why we are here tonight.
  This is months after the Iraq war started, and I just want to state 
the reason I am here tonight is the people who are fighting this war 
deserve answers of how this war started based on false information. If 
it takes us years to get to the bottom of how this was started, why it 
was started and who started it so that they can be held accountable, we 
are going to be here until we get those answers.
  But you have put your finger on a very, very important point; and 
that is that the people who this administration are attacking, Mr. 
O'Neill, Mr. Clarke, Ambassador Wilson, the actuary of the Medicare 
fund, all of whom are being attacked by this administration, their 
statements have proven to be true in the last several weeks. One of the 
great ironies of this is that this administration is attacking civil 
servants for telling the truth.
  Look at Mr. O'Neill. As you indicated, he was attacked because he had 
the temerity, and this was the Secretary of the Treasury, a high-level 
person appointed by the President of the United States on a personal 
basis. Mr. O'Neill said, ``In the 23 months I was there, I never saw 
anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass 
destruction. There were allegations and assertions by people.'' That is 
from Mr. O'Neill's book.
  He said that in January 30, 2001, before September 11, the President 
instructed at the National Security Council meeting, that the President 
directed the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to ``examine our 
military options'' with regard to Iraq.
  Mr. O'Neill was quite viscerally attacked by the administration for 
making those statements. But now it turns out in listening to 
statements by Condoleezza Rice and essentially Donald Rumsfeld and Mr. 
Clarke, those things were true. From their own lips, of people still in 
the administration, that statement was true.
  Mr. Clarke a week or so ago had the temerity to point out that on the 
day after September 11 the Secretary of Defense said something to the 
effect like ``let's get ready to bomb Iraq,'' and it was pointed out to 
the Secretary of Defense that al Qaeda, who at that point we knew was 
behind the September 11 attack, that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, not 
Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld responded, ``Well, there are not any targets in 
Afghanistan.''
  Mr. Clarke originally said, ``Well, I thought he must have been 
kidding.'' It turned out he was not kidding, and when asked about that 
on a talk show this weekend, Mr. Rumsfeld, I did not hear him deny it. 
Incredibly, I did not hear him deny it.
  What I heard was Mr. Clarke pointed out that on September 12, when he 
talked to the President of the United States, the President of the 
United States took him aside and said, essentially, ``I want you to 
look and scrub to see if you can find any evidence whatsoever that it 
was Iraq behind this.''
  Mr. Clarke wondered about that, because he felt the President was 
essentially pushing to find something that had not been reported to 
date.
  Originally, you know what the administration said? They said Mr. 
Clarke was not there that day. Well, today we find from Condoleezza 
Rice not only was he there, but, yes, those conversations apparently 
took place.
  So what we are finding is we are finally getting down, after peeling 
the layers of the onion, to the truth of what happened in Iraq. And 
what happened in Iraq is that this administration very early on was 
bent on taking a course of action involving military action in Iraq.
  It is not that they were forced to by this overwhelming intelligence, 
this mountain of intelligence that led us to the inescapable conclusion 
that Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction. As early as the day 
after the attack on September 11 they were looking for some reason to 
start a war in Iraq. This is something that has been confirmed today by 
their own statements.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield on that point, and 
looking, I might add, for an opportunity to deny that ongoing sanctions 
would prevent, should those weapons actually exist, their utilization, 
either against us, certainly, or against neighbors, other than by 
assertion.
  Mr. INSLEE. It is apparent the questions asked by the President were 
not about the inspection program. The statements were ``let's go bomb 
Iraq, because there are no targets in Afghanistan,'' or something to 
that effect.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can interrupt, I think we are usually in 
agreement, but here I have to disagree, because it was not immediately 
after 9/11. Yes, I believe the President did make that statement, and I 
presume he will acknowledge he made that statement. It has been 
acknowledged implicitly by the spokesperson for the White House.
  But if you go back and examine the record, this administration, and 
particularly the Vice President of the United States, for whatever 
reason, presumably this grand vision of a Middle East rearranged in a 
manner that purportedly would move democracy forward, believed that 
Iraq was the linchpin to having that happen, and a conclusion had been 
reached and they were simply looking for the opportunity to invade 
Iraq. That was before 9/11.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, perhaps he could spell 
the word democracy for me. I believe it is spelled O-I-L. I believe 
they are synonymous with the gentleman to whom you are referring.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I have to say this about the Vice President, and, 
again, those who might be listening to us tonight, if you have access 
to a computer, go on line. On March 10, the headline reads, page 1 of 
the New York Times, ``CIA chief says he corrected Cheney privately.'' 
Even today, it is the Vice President, more than anyone in this 
administration, who will not let it go.
  David Kay said, and, remember, David Kay was the chief arms inspector 
for the United States, embraced by this administration to go and search 
for the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, David Kay said we were all 
wrong. It is time to give it up.
  He indicated in a speech just recently in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I 
think he used the term ``Waiting for a Hail Mary pass, like Vice 
President Cheney is doing, presents us with grave threats.''
  That is David Kay speaking. That is not some partisan Democrat. That 
is not the putative nominee for the Democratic nomination for the 
President. This is beyond politics.

[[Page 5651]]


  Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield further, I think what the 
gentleman is pointing out is that there were huge falsehoods that are 
now apparent that were told to the American people, to the U.S. 
Congress, that were used as a premise to start this war.
  I want to talk about just a couple of those and see what the 
administration has done in response to those.
  The President on March 17, 2003, said, ``Intelligence gathered by 
this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime 
continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever 
devised.

                              {time}  2115

  ``This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against 
Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.'' The second half of that 
is true, but the first statement is false. Yet, no one in the 
administration has admitted the falsity of that statement, despite 
overwhelming intelligence information to this effect. We have people 
serving, and we have lost over 500 Americans in this war that was 
started based on a falsehood, and no one in this administration has had 
the courage and the willingness to straight talk, to say these 
statements were false that were the basis for this war.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield a moment 
before he continues on that point. The gentleman cited a part which 
implied, or not implied but I believe explicitly stated was true with 
respect to utilization of poison gas on Iraqis, more particularly 
Kurdish Iraqis. Does the gentleman know, and if he does not, perhaps he 
would find it of worthy interest to pursue, whether or not that gassing 
or the reference to it took place before or after the first Bush 
administration was in Iraq doing business with Saddam Hussein? And, if 
I am not mistaken, the person representing George Herbert Walker Bush 
and his administration is the present Secretary of Defense.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it is clear that our country did not have 
things to be proud of at the time that the Kurds were gassed. We could 
talk at length about that.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would further yield on 
that point, my reference to that is not to disparage anything that the 
Secretary did in pursuance of policies which he was clearly following 
with respect to his service in the first Bush administration, but 
rather to illustrate that it is at best a bit tiresome, if not 
hypocritical, for the present Bush administration to cite that as if 
the United States was some innocent standby observer, shocked at the 
fact that this took place, disturbed that it had taken place, doing 
anything in the way of diplomatic activity to indicate that we 
disapproved of it in any way, shape, or form. Quite the contrary.
  What the United States did is stand by and not try to ``complicate'' 
the issue, and I say that with quotation marks around it, by making, 
from what I am best able to determine, any kind of significant demurer 
with respect to what Saddam Hussein had done in that instance.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we should have clearly raised a siren 
internationally when that was going on, but let us not compound the 
error by leaving these falsehoods to lie like sort of a stinking 
mackerel in the moonlight right now without this administration 
clearing this up and shooting straight with the American people. 
Because on January 28, 2003, the President of the United States stood 
right behind the gentleman from Hawaii and addressed the Congress and 
the American people and said, ``The British government has learned that 
Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from 
Africa.'' That statement was false, and the administration knew it was 
false.
  He went on to say, ``Our intelligence sources tell us that he has 
attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear 
weapons production.'' That statement was false.


                Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burgess). If the gentleman will suspend, 
the Chair will remind all Members not to engage in personal abuse of 
the Vice President or the President.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the reminder.
  That statement was false, and it was false at the time it was made. 
The reason I know that is that subsequent information has revealed that 
our own agencies have reported that they concluded that those aluminum 
tubes were probably going to be used for some standard rockets, not 
anything to do with centrifuge tubes; and yet the President of the 
United States told the American people there is no doubt that Iraq had 
some of the most lethal weapons devised by man. Now, the fact of the 
matter is, if this is some innocent thing that occurred, we need the 
President to address the American people about how this happened.
  Now, I am glad that the President has finally allowed Condoleezza 
Rice to publicly answer some of the questions around what has happened 
in some of this affair. It is unfortunate that it has taken so long to 
be drug to the public spotlight; but, nonetheless, we hope this will 
shed some light on this.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, a question that I would like to have 
answered by the 9/11 Commission. Well, maybe it is not appropriate for 
the 9/11 Commission; let me retract that. However, I think it is a 
question that this administration should answer via some mechanism, 
because we were all here that night when we heard those words regarding 
the search for highly enriched uranium in the African nation of Niger, 
which turned out to be totally false, and which had been discredited 
and discounted by a variety of intelligence agencies throughout the 
world and particularly, not the CIA, but the DIA and the appropriate 
agency within the Department of State. They just simply did not accept 
it.
  Yet a week later, on February 5, the Secretary of State made a very 
powerful presentation at the United Nations; and in that particular 
presentation, Secretary Powell made no reference, no allusion to that 
particular situation, to the fact that or at least the assertion that 
was presented by the President regarding looking for uranium in Africa. 
I am sure that he did that because, as was reported in a variety of 
media outlets, he sat down with the CIA, the Director and analysts 
within the CIA, and discarded that information.
  Why was it inserted in the State of the Union, and yet approximately 
a week later was not part of the Secretary of State's presentation 
before the United Nations? And did the Secretary of State communicate 
to the President of the United States, to the Vice President of the 
United States his basis, his rationale for not including a very serious 
allegation that was made by the President in the State of the Union 
address and not included in his presentation at the United Nations 
before the world? It is incomprehensible.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would 
contend to him that it is not incomprehensible if the intention all 
along was to go into Iraq and to go into Iraq at the expense of the war 
on terror in Afghanistan. We can see what the results are.
  I would quote to the gentleman from the Financial Times of Monday, a 
report which indicated that a United Nations body will warn this week 
that Afghanistan is in danger of reverting to a ``terrorist breeding 
ground.'' That is the phrase utilized in the Financial Times story 
characterizing the United Nations' report, that Afghanistan is in 
danger of reverting to a terrorist breeding ground with an economy 
dependent on the illegal drug trade, unless the international community 
significantly increases development funding for the war-torn country.
  Now, we have billions and billions and billions, tens of billions of 
dollars to be expended in Iraq at the present time with its economy in 
collapse, except, we are told, for its ability to produce oil. The 
economy in Afghanistan is now reverting to the pre-Taliban days. If the 
gentleman will recall, we supported the Taliban to the tune of $40 
million because it was involved in eradicating the drug trade. The drug 
trade has come back with a vengeance. It is now supplying funding in 
the absence of any international effort being made in Afghanistan and, 
as

[[Page 5652]]

a result of the switch in emphasis on terrorism from Afghanistan to 
Iraq, particularly in the wake of what I contended to the gentleman at 
the beginning of my statement that it was deliberate. It is not 
incomprehensible if it is a deliberate policy of the administration to 
find a methodology of presentation to the country sufficient to raise 
the fear factor to a level that would allow this invasion to take 
place. That was the purpose and the intent all along, and the result 
that the administration has to be held to account for is that 
Afghanistan now is reverting to a status in which it could be called a 
terrorist breeding ground in a United Nations report.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, is my friend aware of the fact that the 
President of Afghanistan recently was compelled to delay the elections 
that were scheduled in June to September?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Hopefully, September.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Hopefully, September.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And I dare say that that election date is very much at 
risk, as the gentleman suggests that Afghanistan, as a viable nation-
state embracing democracy, is very much at risk, because we have 
ignored Afghanistan since we achieved a stunning military success, but 
then diverted our efforts and our resources and our attention to Iraq 
where there was only one terrorist, and that was Saddam Hussein, who 
terrorized his own people. But the terrorists in Afghanistan were the 
terrorists that were training, that were appearing again to attack 
America. And today, we are still searching for them.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for a moment, I 
just want to sort of reiterate basically what the gentleman is saying. 
I keep hearing more and more evidence that with the President taking 
our eye off the ball of al Qaeda, it has damaged our ability to bring 
them to the ground; and it has done that in multiple ways.
  We had a hearing the other day in the Committee on Financial Services 
about our ability to track down and cut off the funds of al Qaeda 
coming out of Saudi Arabia, because that is where the money came, 
largely, from al Qaeda. It turns out the administration has had a lot 
of the forces that could have been used to cut off the money going to 
al Qaeda, the people who killed 3,000 Americans, to chase Saddam's 
funds all around the world. Now, it would be nice to get ahold of 
Saddam Hussein's funds. That is fine. I am sure he abused and did the 
Iraqi people tremendously, not only personally, but fiscally. But the 
guy who killed over 3,000 Americans is at large; and his network of 
raising money is still intact, because this President took our eye off 
the ball and cut off some of the resources we had to cut those 
resources off from al Qaeda.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield on that 
point, I would contend and do contend that the biggest supporter of the 
invasion in Iraq was Osama bin Laden. It does not take a cracker-jack 
specialist in strategy to understand that when your enemy, i.e., the 
United States of America, is addressing all of its attention, its 
military prowess, and its funding in a direction opposite from where 
you are, that that is, in fact, very good for you.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is really important to the 
people who are watching this to understand this: that historically, 
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were bitter enemies. In fact, in the 
mid-1980s, there was a group akin to al Qaeda in terms of its world 
view, fundamentalist Islamist, a perverted form of that holy religion, 
that great religion, that attempted to assassinate Tarik Aziz. Saddam 
Hussein, the tyrant and the thug that he was, just eradicated him. So 
historically, we should have known that those that attacked us were the 
same people that as recently as this month, as recently as this month 
killed hundreds of people in Madrid, Spain; and we need the help of the 
entire world. That is why I go back to this issue of credibility: Who 
is going to believe us?
  I know that there are some that will strut and swagger and be tough 
and say, we can do it alone. Well, I do not want to do it just with 
American men and women.

                              {time}  2130

  This will only be successful, this war on terror, if we do it working 
with others and we have to have their trust. We have to have their 
confidence. We will never accept appeasement, but we have got to be 
honest
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield on that 
point, I will point out in turn that come June 30 you are going to see 
what it is like to be alone. We are going to be cut loose in less than 
100 days in Iraq, not just in Baghdad, but in Iraq; and our Armed 
Forces there will be adrift. There will be no one to report to.
  We have no status of forces agreement with anyone that can be 
enforced. We have no idea with whom we would enforce such an agreement. 
All our armed services, all our Armed Forces in Iraq after June 30 will 
be left to fend for themselves and make decisions on the spot as to 
what they will do and how they will operate and who they are working 
for and with. There will be no operative government whatsoever, and 
this is being done entirely for political reasons because of the utter 
failure of this operation.
  The gentleman will recall that I indicated back at the time of this 
invasion that this would not be a war, that this would be a lightning 
attack on Baghdad, and then the war would start. I trust the gentlemen, 
both of them, will recall me saying that; and I think it was quite 
clear to those of us serving on the Committee on Armed Services that 
was going to be the result, and even then we indicated as a result of 
the testimony of people like General Shinseki and others, upon whom we 
have relied to good effect in the past, that unless we were properly 
prepared with the logistics, even that lightning attack would suffer 
casualties and set us in circumstance less than what we could be in 
terms of the military might of this country.
  That is precisely what happened. That lightning attack was 
accompanied by consequences in terms of supply and logistics which 
harmed us and harmed those who served in that attack, and then the war 
began, and we are suffering from that kind of war right now, as we 
speak tonight; and on June 30, I can assure you that the level of 
combat in terms of what the United States is going to suffer is 
scarcely beyond imagination
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, in retrospect General Shinseki, who was 
treated in an extremely dismissive manner, his advice should have been 
heeded and, maybe just maybe, today we would be looking at a totally 
different situation in Iraq than what we are currently embracing.
  I am sure you are aware that the leader, the dominant leader of the 
Shiites in Iraq, Ayatollah Al'sistani, is already circulating 
information, pamphlets, decrying the Constitution. I mean, it has been 
reported that CIA analysts are concerned about a civil war in Iraq
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we have got 
people there tonight who are sitting ducks for this terrible situation 
in Iraq, and there are two things really galling to me about this.
  Number one, I have heard some people in these Chambers sort of 
suggest, well, we only lost a couple today; we only lost 10 this week; 
we only lost 100 this last couple of months; it is not like Vietnam. 
Well, I have got to say when I went to a family 2 weeks ago to spend 
the Sunday with them when their father and husband of two young kids is 
never coming home again, it is just like no other war; and these 
numbers, this is not a numbers game.
  These people who are serving tonight deserve something. They deserve 
their government to be accountable to them, to be responsible to them 
as to why this war started based on false information given to the 
American people, and we are now learning that there was lots of false 
information given to them. They are entitled to that. The American 
people are entitled to that, and we are intending to get that one way 
or another.

[[Page 5653]]


  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield on that 
point, all this is true, and I think we have to reiterate it, but that 
is retrospective. Prospectively, I think we have to look at June 30, 
and I hope, Mr. Speaker, that when we have the opportunity next to come 
before you, Mr. Speaker, that we will be able to address that question.

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